News
‘It can be pretty horrifying’: how Cambodia’s land grabs are ruining lives
The monk looks haggard in the midmorning sun, scanning the views through surrounding trees while chainsaws drone in the near distance. “It’s as if a storm has come and the animals have fled like there has been a hurricane,” he says from his sparse, open-air pagoda ...
Andrew Haffner
Ministry reports illegal land grabs in Bokor National Park
Authorities have identified 201 cases of illegal land encroachment, involving more than 619 hectares, in Preah Monivong (Bokor) National Park from July 3 last year to July 31 this year. Ministry of Environment spokesman Neth Pheaktra said recently that the ministry had submitted an official letter ...
Son Minea
Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia
A new regulation signed into law in March this year but only unveiled publicly in May will see almost 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land in Cambodia made available for sale or rent, prompting fears among conservationists about a land grab for some ...
GERALD FLYNN & ANDREW BALL & PHOUNG VANTHA
‘What other country would do this to its people?’ Cambodian land grab victims seek int’l justice
“It started when some people from the government came around the community telling us that we were illegally occupying the land,” Chhae Kimsrour said in June 2020. “I’ve lived here since 1995, but six months later they came back and started filling in my lake. ...
GERALD FLYNN, PHOUNG VANTHA
Lands Grabs and Other Destructive Environmental Practices in Cambodia Test the International Criminal Court
Three leading climate and human rights nonprofits have asked the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague to pursue rampant “land grabbing” by the government of Cambodia and its commerce partners as a crime against humanity under the court’s jurisdiction. In an open letter ...
Katie Surma
In Cambodia, this village shows even the wealthy are vulnerable to land grabbing
The river view behind the house was broad and serene, a wide expanse of the Mekong flowing just past the newly occupied villa. A pretty sight, and prime real estate too. So when the sand pumping crews showed up just after the housewarming party late last ...
ANDREW HAFFNER
Lao Capital Residents Fight Land Grab, Reject Offered Compensation
Residents of the Lao capital Vientiane are resisting seizure of their land by a Lao-China joint venture building an expressway, saying they had been promised earlier their land would not be taken, and calling offers of compensation unacceptably low, Lao sources say. The project, a 13-km ...
RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Stop grabbing forest land
The Siem Reap provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries called on citizens to stop stealing forest land belonging to the state. It said village, commune and district authorities should cooperate to protect forest land in the province. Department director Tea Kimsoth told The Post on ...
Voun Dara
General hit by links to land grabs, arrests
NGO Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organisation (NRWPO) director Chea Hean and two families have accused two-star general Chea Yothin of suing them at the Kampong Speu provincial court for defamation in a 105sqm land dispute in Phnom Sruoch district. Hean said on Thursday that the ...
Soth Koemsoeun
Man charged over land grab of hundreds of hectares of protected forest
Battambang provincial court has charged a man who illegally cleared hundreds of hectares of protected forest land for sale as housing lots in Battambang province’s Samlot district since 2015. Long Vuthy, 48, was arrested on September 15 by joint forces from the provincial authority and National ...
Khy Sovuthy
